I was watching the Lakers vs Bulls last night and one of the key plays at the end of the game came on an offensive rebound by Luol Deng who got an and1 play to bring the Bulls to within 1 with less than a minute to go in the game.

It was a weird bounce as Deng shot a 3ptr and the ball came right back at him.

I went back and looked at the highlights and replay of the play and I could see why the Lakers couldn't come up with the ball.

Kobe is trying to leak out for the run out off of the defensive rebound. Problem is, Deng is the one that comes up with the ball and then the Bulls are essentially playing 5 on 4 with Kobe way out of position.

As a run and gun team, you have to weight the pros and cons of leaking out vs rebounding down. I got the idea mostly from Billy Donovan's DVD on Transition Offense and decided that for our team, leaking out on a long wing or top shot was worth it as our halfcourt offense isn't very good and we needed something to get easy baskets. The idea is that the majority (80%) of rebounds go to the weak side, so we will leak out against the shooter and the rebounder will look for the easy lob off the run out. It's been tremendous for us and it has caused offenses to adjust as they need to send less players to the offensive glass and send someone back to cover the deep pass.

However, be aware, this is a gamble. Because if the offense comes up with the rebound, you are playing with 4 defenders against their 5. For us, it's usually a gamble we're willing to live with. But, on at least one occasion this season so far, we have adjusted to have our guards rebound down instead of leaking out. It's an adjustment we will make game to game depending on whether we need more rebounding help.